As many of you who came to London last december for the Haslinger auction may remember i wore this particular watch on one wrist and it received a mixture of surprise reactions from the Heuer crowd. Its fair to say that upon first glace it was mistaken for a standard valjoux.230 Bundeswehr. Then upon closer insection people we shocked to see a date window down in the 6 o'clock position on the dial and then a crown present on the left hand side. Yes its Cal.12 powered !!!

Its a prototype Caliber.12 automatic Heuer Bundeswehr watch which was submitted to the German military for assessment in the 1970's. As a prototype there is no model production or serial number between the lugs or even the charactoristic Bund engraving with military numbers on the caseback. The automatac Cal.12 movement has its charactoristic left side crown at the 9 o'clock postion but the familiar Bund case must have been used as a guide when making this case (there is no evidence of a hole where the crown would have lived at the 3 o'clock position on the Valj.230 version)

Its one of just a hand full ever made. The story, as far as i understand, is that the watch was not approved due to its production costs (keep in mind that the Cal.11 movement, in 1969, became the worlds first automatic chronograph & was a relatively expensive movement to produce). This watch carries the Cal.12 movement which is the next evolution of the Cal.11 & although the volumes of production for the Cal.12 had increased it still made the overall cost of a complex automatic Bund watch too expensive a proposition.
There are still further rumours that the automatic movements lack of fly-back chronograph ability also counted against it in terms of a practical timer but after speaking to Arno Haslinger in London last december he was able to confirm that it was in fact the financial production cost that sadly killed off this lovely watch's chances of being put into production. Such a shame as it is one of my absolute favourite watches of all time.

Its large case and simple black and white presentation on the hands and dial make this watch very easy to read. The fact that the watch is so big also gives it a more modern feel than many of the watches of the 70's era.
I would dearly love to hear from any other owners out there or if anyone has any further information for me on my own watch.
Hope you all enjoy it - Darren